Category Archives: Maximum Marketing

Dubsado, HoneyBook, 17Hats, Releventful

In searching for a new CRM I heavily valued two things: Automation and Support. Dubsado brings these in spades.

CRM Quick Compare

Features vs CRM

Dubsado

17Hats

HoneyBook

Releventful

Lead Intake Form

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Bulk Import Leads

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Contracts

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Visual Lead Board

Ok

Meh

Best

Meh

Automated Workflows

Best

Ok

Meh

Ok

Song List Manager

No

No

No

Yes

Support/Community

Best

Ok

Ok

?

QuickBooks Link

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Price/Year

$350

$295

$400

$240

My Ranking

1

2

3

4

My Favorite: Dubsado FTW

Support & Community

Their chat support responded nearly in real time, under a minute! And look at the interactivity in their Facebook group? Questions pop up all the time because there’s so much under the hood, and if you can’t figure it out someone else has likely engineered a workaround and will gladly help.

Automation & Workflows

I have a tech background and experience coding and with automation. You can’t code in Dubsado, but you can implement conditional logic for workflows to do things for you under various criteria. Look at how specific you can get:

Smart Fields As Integrated Variables

Dubsado also uses Smart Fields which are essentially variables that allow you to use the same data across forms, emails, contracts, etc. Proposals and Contracts can build themselves as clients select their own packages and options, then automatically create an invoice and pay on the spot.

Weakness One: No Song Selection For Clients

If you’re a DJ who incorporates a song selection system for clients to pick out tracks, you won’t find that with Dubsado. It’s not targeted to DJs so you’ll have to incorporate another service such as Vibo.io That being said I’ve heard great things about Vibo, though it’s also expensive going at more than $30 per month.

Weakness Two: Lead Board

The other thing I’m not in love with is the lead board. You have to click into each category to get a sense of what’s going on. I really love the one on HoneyBook pictured in the second image below. You can customize your categories in Dubsado, I just wish they utilized a more condensed drag & drop system like HoneyBook.

Dubsado’s Lead Board

My favorite lead board, similar to HoneyBook

Conclusion

Dubsado’s not the cheapest but it’s still in the same price range as other options. They’ll even transfer all contacts from your old CRM for free! With the level of customized automation Dubsado offers paired with the Support Community and speed of updates, I’ll be happy with Dubsado for quite a while. Even better, you can get 20% off your first year by using anyone’s referral promo code!

Disclaimer: I get a free month if you use it. I wasn’t however biased in any way in writing this review or deciding which service to use.

On that note, happy automating!

PS: A Note On DJ Event Planner (DJEP)

DJ Event Planner is used by many many DJs to manage their business. For years it looked like Windows 95 had a baby with GeoCities, and they got away with it because they were really the only game in town for us. A big plus they had going for them is client song selection.

But after a visual refresh it still looks dated and feels clunky. Workflow automation is severely lacking and their comparative service plan still comes in at $240 per year, a similar price range as our modern alternatives above. For that reason I didn’t include DJEP in my showdown, automation is KEY these days. DJ Event Planner also doesn’t integrate with QuickBooks. Should I go on?

Some will disagree with me, that’s fine. I’ll be automating my business so I can focus on what we enjoy most: playing music and making money!

I got 15% off Gigmasters just for asking.

Here’s my conversation almost word for word, I’m sure you could use any reason for why you want a reduced rate. One 5 minute phone call = $40. I’m sure you can follow this exact script for ANY subscription service you pay for.

Hi [name of rep]. I have an existing Gigmasters account and have an annual renewal coming up in a few days that I had a question on.

“Ok, what’s your Member ID or account email?

XXXX

“Ok great am I speaking to Daniel?”

Yes

“Ok how can I help?”

Well I see the renewal coming up is $269 and I wanted to know if there was any flexibility in that, my marketing budget this year is pretty tight.

“Ok hold one moment, let me see if there’s anything I can do”

….

“I checked with my team and we don’t have any promotions currently running but I can offer a 15% discount on your renewal, does that work?”

Notes:

Sound like you’re in a good mood by smiling, be polite, and generally pleasurable to chat with. Use their first name. People like hearing their name. Make them want to help you!

Companies really don’t want to lose business. Taking time to call about retaining their services shows you’re interested and it won’t take much to keep a happy paying customer!

When you’re in the nascent stages of building a Mobile DJ business, you need to prove to your market that you’re the real deal. With sites likes Wix and WordPress anyone in their mother’s basement it’s no longer enough to have a decent looking site. That is, if you want to make more than a couple hundred bucks a month. I’m talking triple digit annual growth here.

A tenet remember is this: What got you here will not get you there.

What helped you grow from a four figure business to a five figure business won’t get you to six figures.

Five figure income might require a tasteful website, a handful of professional event photos, and a couple of words from past clients.

Six figures requires a change in your game. Six figures requires your clients to go to bat for YOU. You need to blow them away so they want to help you. Double digit testimonials at this point is a MUST.

One of the ways I did that is by gifting custom soundtrack mementos.

I ordered a hundred custom vinyl CDs I could burn music onto. For each couple I then ordered a wooden engraved CD case with their initials and wedding date. I burn their special songs (Ceremony music, first dances, wedding party introduction music) and recorded toasts onto the CD. It only costs me about $30 and 30 minutes per couple, and it blows their minds.

Here is the end result:

Bride DJ Dan Moran

Not only are they clamoring to write you a review, they’re raving to all their friends and relatives what their DJ got them. Word of Mouth on steroids.

Then it might sit on a mantlepiece in their home for future visitors to ask what that box is. It’s some of the best marketing dollars you could ever spend.

Only about 30-40% of clients give their vendors testimonials. By going the extra mile, I’ve been able to get testimonials from about 90% of my clients.

And I picked up a ninja tactic to double your testimonial rate:

Ask your clients to write a few words on why they decided to book you after they sign that contract!

No longer do you have to wait 6-12 months before getting a review!

It’s not enough to throw money at paid advertising and wait for clients to come to you. You need to have the assets consumers are looking for these days to get them to click BUY. You wouldn’t buy anything on Amazon without reading great reviews would you? Booking DJs is no different.